According to unnamed industry sources, SanDisk is primed to fire up to 15% of its staff, which would amount to around 450 to 500 employees. The purported cuts will be made as the company downsizes in order to cut costs, hot on the heels of a $155 million Q3 loss and sales that have sunk by 21% year-over-year to $281 million. Call us crazy, but we get the feeling this won't be the last story we hear over the next few months that ends with dutiful workers being sent home.

[Image courtesy of Semiconductor]

SSDs will apparently get a serious (extreme, if you will) upgrade in the coming year, with SanDisk's announcement of a new technology dubbed ExtremeFFS (Flash File System). It is, as you can possibly guess, a new file system, but it'll use page-based methods so that the data's location on the drive won't be tied to its physical space, as it is now. SanDisk says this means that random write speeds are going to be 100 times faster than they are on drives using current technology. The company hopes that this advance, coupled with other upcoming standards, will lead to widespread adoption of SSDs in PCs (and much, much more money in their pockets). That should fit in nicely with news we just heard that Microsoft's Windows 7, unlike Vista, will include optimization for use with the drives. While actual drives that carry ExtremeFFS have yet to be announced, SanDisk expects them to ship in 2009. Fun times.

[Via Electronista, CNET]

"Your surprise announcements of a quarter billion dollar operating loss, a hurried renegotiation of your relationship with Toshiba and major job losses across your organisation all point to a considerable increase in your risk profile and a material deterioration in value, both on a stand-alone basis as well as to Samsung."

Analysts will remind you that the move does not mean that Samsung has abandoned its quest for SanDisk entirely. However, further action in the current economic climate seems unlikely give the Korean governments warning against major overseas mergers and acquisitions. Besides, just who is SanDisk? Can it really be trusted after being seen palling around with slotMusic?

Update: SanDisk just responded by blaming Samsung for the breakdown in negotiations while questioning its intentions. SanDisk then pivoted abruptly on heel and pretended to freshen-up its makeup while sneaking a wanton look back at Samsung in the reflection of its shareholder discontent. At least that's our read on the matter.

Toshiba and SanDisk have been in a number of joint ventures for some time now, but it looks like the two companies are now starting what could be a more drawn out break-up process, with SanDisk announcing today that it's selling 30% of its manufacturing capacity outright to Toshiba in a $1 billion deal. For the time being at least, the two will remain 50/50 partners in the remaining 70% of the companies' joint factories, though Toshiba will apparently get 65% of the production capacity at those factories. As MarketWatch points out, this latest move comes just a month after SanDisk rejected a $6 billion buyout offer from Samsung, and some analysts are now speculating that Toshiba's deal will only make the company a more attractive target for Samsung. Nothing is expected to get wrapped up before August of 2009, however, which is when Samsung's current royalty arrangement with SanDisk is due to expire.

[Via The Inquirer]

When you're digging a hole for yourself, you might as well keep digging in hopes of emerging from the other side. Today SanDisk unearthed its Sansa slotMusic Player -- specially designed for those ill-fated slotMusic microSD cards pre-loaded with DRM-free music from "dozens of popular artists" (a bit over 3 dozen to be exact) at $15 a pop. It'll also play your self-loaded music on microSD cards (currently maxing out at 16GB) just as long as it's loaded in either MP3 and unprotected WMA formats. The tiny, display-less, 2.8 x 1.4 x 1.4-inch (that can't be right, but that's what the press release says) player sells for $20 (or $35 for artist branding and 1GB slotMusic card album) and is available immediately along side a smattering of accessories from US shops like Best Buy and fittingly, Wal-Mart. Headed to Europe and other global destinations sometime in 2009 assuming the whole format isn't scrapped after disappointing holiday sales are tallied.

Read -- slotMusic Player
Read -- slotMusic Artists

SanDisk just released a firmware update for the Sansa Fuze -- pretty minor, except it adds in support for FLAC and Ogg, which should make fans of jam bands and lossless music encoding extremely happy. Nothing much else of note here apart from some UI tweaks and bug fixes, but Fuze owners will be appreciative, we're sure.

[Via DAPreview]

What's been keepin' ya, SanDisk? We knew these little buggers were legit late last week, but for whatever reason, the outfit chose to keep its trap shut until today. Finally, SanDisk has confessed in painful detail that its 16GB microSDHC and M2 cards are for real, marking the largest capacity available in both formats. Of note, even Sony doesn't have a 16GB M2 card on the market, though it's possible the firm is too busy dealing with all those other proprietary formats to mess with this one. At any rate, Best Buy Mobile and Verizon Wireless stores will be your go-to place for either one, though we'd be prepared to shell out $99.99 (16GB microSDHC) or $129.99 (16GB M2) when they land in November.

Shhh, keep this on the down low: SanDisk's 16GB microSDHC card is now available for purchase -- the first to reach that capacity. At the moment, it's only been spotted at a few on-line shops in the UK for round-about £45 with VAT (about $70 pre-tax in the US). Exactly what you need for your new T-Mobile G1. Hey Sandisk, you want to chime in and make this official or what?

[Thanks, L.Rawlins]

If you're jonesing for the quickest, most nimble CF card this planet has to offer, you'll be hard pressed to find one quicker and more nimble than this. Following up on Pretec's launch, SanDisk has started shipping its 16GB 300x (45MB/sec) Extreme IV CompactFlash card, which marks a 12.5% increase in speed and 50% boost in capacity compared to its predecessor. Oh, but then there's the $399.99 price tag. We know, right?

We're not sure why the music industry thinks consumers want to buy even more physical media, but it can't seem to stop pumping out plastic in a futile attempt to stay relevant -- this time it's an initiative called slotMusic, announced today in partnership with SanDisk and several major retailers. The 1GB slotMusic microSD cards are preloaded with DRM-free 320kbps MP3s, and are aimed primarily at mobile phones -- the idea is that you'll be able to buy music and listen to it without having to sideload it onto your device using your computer at home. Sure, we can see the appeal of that, but when we half-facetiously asked SanDisk's reps if they expected us to carry around a stack of individual microSD albums, they didn't laugh when they said yes, and even told us that slotMusic media binders would be available at launch -- no, they weren't kidding. We're not sure anyone's going to be sold on going back to lugging around physical media with the iTunes and Zune WiFi stores out there, but it sounds like we'll be seeing quite a push for this from retailers and the labels -- and artists are apparently enthusiastic about using the full 1GB of space to include content beyond basic liner notes and cover art. We'll see when these launch around the holidays -- if we had to guess, we'd say this is just Ringles and CDVU+ part III.

We'd heard rumors Samsung was wooing SanDisk, but it looks like the four-month courtship is over -- Samsung just announced that in response to SanDisk's "unrealistic expectations" during negotiations, it's going hostile and will offer $26/share for the company. That's bound to cause some waves in the storage industry, especially since Toshiba and Seagate were also rumored to be interested in SanDisk. We'll see what happens -- things always get a little crazy when there's nearly six billion dollars in cash on the table.

[Thanks, Marshall84]

Update: SanDisk's board rejected the bid unanimously, saying the bid undervalues the company and is, like, totally uncool, man.

Read - WSJ article
Read - Samsung letter to SanDisk

SanDisk's 30MB/s Extreme III line of flash cards keeps growing -- the company just announced the 32GB Extreme III CompactFlash card for $299. Pretty steep, but if you're shooting high-speed RAW images or filming an HD masterpiece, we bet your ears just perked up. Out in October, we're told.

Samsung is reportedly looking into the acquisition of SanDisk Corp. A union of two Flash memory giants sure to get the attention Toshiba (SanDisk's partner-in-NAND) and that of anti-trusters from Korea to Intel. To makes matters even more interesting, Seagate was also courting SanDisk whose stock price has plummeted from $56 to just over $13 per share since this time last year. Hey investors, sounds like an ideal premise for a bidding war to us. Then again, we only took Econ101 to sit in a room with real live girls.

In a comment on this market rumor and speculation, SanDisk just issued the following statement:

"SanDisk periodically has conversations with multiple parties, including Samsung, regarding a variety of potential business opportunities. We evaluate all of these opportunities, but maintain a policy of not commenting on market rumors or speculation."

[Thanks, Genesis]

Read -- Samsung's advances
Read -- SanDisk's response